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MindFreedom International Launches Directory of Mental Health Alternatives.

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NEWS RELEASE: The MindFreedom online directory of alternative mental health for mental is finally available. Providers who agree with MFI Principles of Mental Health Alternatives are now encouraged to submit their services for listing! (Updated 8/8/09.)

MindFreedom International Launches Directory of Mental Health Alternatives.

Matthew Morrissey, member of MindFreedom Choice in Mental Health Care Committee, worked hard to complete the launch of the directory. He is shown here speaking at a protest in front of the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.

 

NEWS


A Call for All Good Alternative Mental Health Providers to List Their Services!


MindFreedom International announced the much-anticipated launch of its MindFreedom Directory of Mental Health Alternatives, and is issuing an international call for services that would like to be listed.

To try out the geographically-searchable directory, which already lists a few alternatives, go to the Directory Gateway by clicking here.

MindFreedom's new directory is unique in that every provider listed has agreed to uphold key principles on such issues as the use and discontinuation of psychiatric drugs, the “biomedical model,” and forced treatment. The principles were devised by the the MindFreedom International Choice in Mental Health Care Committee, and endorsed by the MindFreedom International board of directors.

To read the MindFreedom Principles for Mental Health Alternatives click here.

The Directory will be international in scope and draw upon MindFreedom’s allies in many countries.  

MindFreedom board member Matthew Morrissey, who is a mental health counselor, stated, “An important new component to MindFreedom’s work of promoting human rights in the mental health system is to build an extensive network of practitioners and agencies who fundamentally respect the dignity and resiliency of the people they serve.”

While the idea for a directory is not new, the goal of creating it was officially proposed and discussed at the Wisdom House Conference on Alternatives in July of 2007. There, the conference attendees helped brainstorm the broad outlines of the project. 

Thanks to the generous donations of MindFreedom members, enough funds were raised to build a customized database. MindFreedom's web master NetCorps encountered technical difficulties with the custom database, but work was completed in June 2009.

 

Call to Providers to List Alternative Mental Health Services in Directory!


Providers of services who agree with the MindFreedom Directory of Alternatives Principles, and who would like to apply to be listed in the directory, may inquire at this e-mail address:

creativerevolution@mindfreedom.org

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Lauren Tenney, psychiatric survivor activist from New York State

First involuntarily institutionalized, at 15, Lauren Tenney is a survivor of psychiatry. She has been involved with the user and survivor movement since 1992. Her goal is to help stop forced psychiatric procedures, detainment, and confinement, human rights violations, psychiatric abuse and torture. Of particular concern are the elimination of forced electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) on people of all ages, but particularly children and senior citizens, forced drugging, restraints, seclusion, behavioral interventions, and coercion of any kind. Lauren, a Mad-Activist/ Artist/ Author/ Academic/ Adjunct Professor is coordinating The Opal Project, an outcome of participatory action research she coordinated for field research in the PhD program in Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her dissertation topic is: "The Institutionalized "Community." She became involved with WE THE PEOPLE when the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights and MindFreedom International needed someone on the ground in Brooklyn, New York to coordinate a response where Esmin Green was murdered-by-neglect. She now lives in Albany, NY with her service dog-in-training and cat. For more info: www.TheOpalProject.org and www.etrash.tv